How much pain does registering two Oracle Testing Id Cause to everyone?

Question

Reading the forum over the last 8 months or so seems apparent to me that if a candidate has two (or more!) Oracle Testing Id's and takes exams under both then problems will result as certifications will not be generated untill all pre-requisite passes are under the same Oracle Testing Id. (For those having taken exams under Prometric their Oracle Testing Id has been set to their old Prometric Id.)
the pain this caused in the old Prometric days is mentioned on the Oracle Certification Blogs Here [http://blogs.oracle.com/certification/2008/09/one_plus_one_zero_when_it_come.html] (dont follow the procedure there .. its out of date).
The procedure for sorting this still remains a merge, however now through Pearson VUE. The procedure is not directly on Support FAQs [http://education.oracle.com/pls/web_prod-plq-dad/db_pages.getpage?page_id=82#5Q1A] though would indirectly be covered by (I have not received my success kit what do I do?). The procedure required is however authoratively mentioned at {message:id=3923313}. However as can be seen in the rest of the thread {thread:id=991553} there appears to be occasions when some Pearson Personnel VUE appear to not realise they are responsible for initiating the merge and sometimes the merge man may be on holiday (or maybe off on stress through the number of merge's perhaps?)
Thus the candidate with two Oracle Testing Id's has a possibility (maybe even likelihood) of pain further down the line in getting it sorted. But as far as I am aware it is usually sorted ... though it may take a while. Pain to Candidate.
Oracle and Pearson VUE have pain through this as well. There is a support cost dealing with the Oracle Testing Id Merge. Not just in authenticating and performing the merge but also when the query comes as a problem but the root cause is found to be multiple Oracle Testing Ids. While this does give support teams an opportunity to perform the net effect is increased costs for Oracle/Pearson VUE - which means reduced profits or perhaps more likely increased exam costs for everyone - in other words a pain for everyone.
Basically no one wins on this.
Why does it happen? I'll exclude why people have had multiple Prometric Id's (Oracle Testing Id's) for exams taken under Prometric. What was done under Prometric has been done.
However under Pearson VUE why might this happen?
If I start off at the linke [http://www.pearsonvue.com/Oracle] - Click on My Account - then the Link Create a new web account a form is presented:
The key part of this form is in the Previous Testing History Frame :
Please provide the following information.
     Have you tested with Oracle Certification Program before?
     (*) No, this will be my first time testing with Oracle Certification Program.
     (*) Yes, I have tested with Oracle Certification Program before.
           Enter your Oracle Testing ID, if available:If people answer NO to this question and subsequently then need/request an Oracle Testing Id Merge in my opinion they should be charged for this. This is a blatant mistruth. I suspect some people may rush to get regsitered and take the exam and or care about the registration details; or are happy for it to be sorted afterwards rather than getting the Oracle Testing Id. Sorted now.
HOWEVER:
- There needs to be a further email just in case they has the wrong button selected by mistake, so after registering the fact there has been no oracle testing needs to be confirmed. I believe, because of form design, there may be a signifcant chance of this happening.
- There also needs to be indications that if two Pearson VUE Oracle Accounts have been created then subsequently different exams have been passed on each then merging will incur a cost. This is just slopiness by the registrant.
If the people answer yes; but make a mistake in the Oracle Testing Id, they hopefully that would be picked up.
IF people answer yes, but leave the Oracle Testing Id blank, hopefully Pearson is on top of getting it sorted and not let the issue propogate. The effects of leaving this blank as unclear to me, and I hope good procedures are in place for handling it.
There is also IMHO a big issue here that it is not obvious from this page that canididates should enter their old Prometic Testing Id here.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++
In summary I believe people having mulitple Oracle Testing Id's hurts us all, and to prevent this I would suggest a charge for merge where a candidate have incorrectly siad they have not done Oracle Testing before and where they have a had clear chance to correct this in the event the relevant form radio button has flipped without them noticing.
But I also believe Pearson VUE could probably do a couple of minor changes to procedures, pages and boilerplates to reduce the chances of problems occuring. I think some problems could be stopped before they start.
Notes:
(1) Any pages referenced are by myself from UK at time of post. Sometimes from other countries they can be different

Answer 1

I'd just like to add to this that one poster {message:id=4029960} appears not to have given a Oracle Testing ID when registering with Pearson VUE and that Pearson VUE appears to have located it for him. I assume he indicated he had tested previously and presumably his profile details matched those held by Oracle from Prometric. This appears to be a single (unverified) instance of this working correctly; and the candidate not ending up with multiple Oracle Testing Ids'.